lunes, 23 de abril de 2012

SUNNY SIDE UP

More than thirty years ago David Baird, after working around the world as
a journalist, and his wife Thea travelled through southern Spain looking
for living a back-to-nature existence in
the sunshine. So they settled in El Pueblo. And
during the last thirty years they have seen time going by
and have observed, not without nostalgia, how the 21st
century has beaten this village in southern Spain. And
that's what this book is about. About humans interacting with humans,
neighbours and visitors, with landscape, urban and natural, and about looking
for the essence of every little aspect of life and enjoy it.

Here the reader will
find hilarious situations arising from the
relationship with neighbours, the presence of the authorities
or the clash of cultures. In one of them, our man decides to produce his
own wine on the pueblo style since "they
had, after all, been at it for generations, using methods handed down from
father to son since the time of Romans " but coming from a world where
waiting for something to happen was a waste of time "In desperation, I tossed the comatose yeast into the angry must
and sat back to await results...My book said it was most essential to use this
device to avoid infection by fruit flies and other noxious influences. It was comforting
to know that all this technology was on my side. The locals, poor souls, had no
such advantages...They just put a slate over the hole in the barrel". but
after his failure… "I picked up my
wine bible to seek an explanation. Then I had second thoughts and went in
search of Jaime". Again and again the force of tradition and custom
takes him to rethink his world, and little by little he becomes involved in el
pueblo as a neighbour and not a foreigner. The book is full of episodes dealing
with dark customs, miracles, funny traditions such as the cencerrazo, local politics and politicians, and progress and “new”
technologies such as tv, refrigerators or washing machines touching el pueblo for the first time.

But we can also find delightful descriptions of
stunning views, sensations and nature: “But
the rains never lasted long and the sunny days that followed made up for them.
There was a brilliance to the atmosphere in winter which I have seen nowhere
else. The air possessed an astonishing clarity; every time I gazed out at the
morning stillness from our terrace, I was surprised again by the intensity of
the play of light and shadow. Each tree, each house, each ridge, each leaf
seemed freshly minted and each image so burnished that it etched itself
diamond-sharp on the retina”. This is el
pueblo, that it could be your pueblo, any pueblo. What a beautiful place to
settle and fell at home.